VANCOUVER!

Once again, this blog is starting with an apology for the belatedness of this post. Alan and I returned from Vancouver (WA) a little more than a week ago, but things have been hectic with work, moving apartments, new roommates, and school starting up in a couple days.

Anyway, after visiting Chicago and Alan's family, we flew from Chicago to Portland to visit my family and hometown. This flight turned out to be quite an . . . adventure. Scroll to the end for the complete story. 

Once we got to Portland, we drove over the Columbia River to my house in Vancouver. After an afternoon of recovery, we went to the Clark County Fair with my family and saw a monster truck derby, along with some farm animals and rickety rides.

We spent the next day exploring the Columbia Gorge. It was a beautiful, sunny day without a cloud in the sky. If you are from the area, you'll know how big of a rarity this in. We drove along the historic highway and saw a lot of different waterfalls, including Multnomah.

The next day we made our way up to Seattle, after spending the morning at the Portland Rose Gardens with my parents. We met up with my brother Chris and went to a Mariners/Red Sox game. The Mariners lost, but that's not to be unexpected.

In Safeco Field

After returning to Vancouver, Alan and I went to the Saturday Market in Portland. We explored the Pearl, Powell's, stopped at Voodoo donuts, and bought records. While we were there, we made our way over to Franks-a-Lot for our weekly hot dog. Franks-A-Lot is located in a unique A-frame shack in a Whole Foods Parking Lot on East Burnside. As Alan joked, a more appropriate name for the restaurant may be "Franks-in-a-Lot." This is by no means a temporary location. Franks-A-Lot has been open for more than a decade. 

This place has probably one of the more substantial menus that we've seen. There's quite a variety of different franks and sausages available, and all of them are huge. The toppings are unique and the flavors were nothing like we've tasted yet. We ordered a spicy Red Hot sausage topped with cheddar cheese, red onion, and kraut. We also ordered a cheese frank with sweet-hot mustard, relish, and kraut.

Unfortunately, Alan was quite under-the-weather. His tonsils were swollen and inflamed, and later that night we went to the urgent care for a misdiagnosis of tonsillitis and a prescription for some steroids. Upon our return to Provo, we found out that Alan actually had mono. Poor guy! 

We spent the rest of our trip taking it easy and took a day trip to the Oregon coast. We had a great trip, but it's nice to be back. :)

Not feeling too hot...but still pretty hot.

Franks-A-Lot is located on 2845 E Burnside St in Portland, OR.  

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More on the story of our flight to Portland:

We had a 5 a.m. flight, with a layover in Las Vegas, but ended up stuck in security lines for close to 45 minutes. Our flight departed while we were still in line.

Neither of us had ever missed a flight before, and I was honestly pretty nervous. Once we got to an info desk, the lady behind the counter told us to RUN to a gate at the opposite end of the airport to try and catch a connecting flight that would eventually get us to Portland.

I guess a lot of people missed their flights that day, because we were joined by quite a few other sprinters. I kind of felt like I was in an action movie or something, just without the music.

After a couple more failed attempts to make our way to Portland, we actually ended up on a direct flight, even sitting next to each other! We arrived half an hour after than we would have originally, and had a good laugh and a sigh of relief.